How Google Core Updates might affect your search ranking without you even knowing

Google issues a series of ‘Core Updates’ throughout any given year. So far in 2020, there have been two. The first one was the January 2020 core update, the latest is the ‘May 2020’ core update.

If you’ve noticed your website pages rise or fall in Google Search, it could be because Google released one of its Core Updates. In a core update, Google makes significant changes to its search engine algorithms to improve the quality of search results. These changes can have a considerable effect on search engine results pages (SERPs), across different industries and languages.

You may be more concerned if you lose rankings than if you gain them. However, because of the broad nature of a core update, many sites can be affected. It doesn’t mean you’ve broken any of Google’s rules; it just means that more relevant content has moved up the search rankings over yours.

Pinpointing why pages have dropped in Google search results can be tricky. Because a core update involves broad changes, and Google can potentially change many factors, the ‘fix’ could be different for every site.

Also, Google likes to keep its algorithm a secret, so they don’t reveal the specifics of what changes they make in a core update. This can make pinpointing what to change a bit of a guessing game.

But that doesn’t mean there is nothing you can do.

Even if there aren’t any specific actions to take for the update, Google advises: “focusing on ensuring you’re offering the best content you can. That’s what our algorithms seek to reward.”

Where Google releases frequent updates, in their persistent efforts to improve search results, they say that “content might recover in the future, even if a content owner makes no changes.” However, take note that this is not guaranteed.

With the continued evolution of search engine algorithms, they’re getting better at recognising the most relevant content to a query. This is why focusing on the quality of your content and writing for humans first (i.e. writing with your customers in mind, not the search engine bots) is a good content strategy.